Draft CEQA Standards Aim to Relax Parking Rules

CEQA Standards Require Projects to Provide Adequate Car Parking. However, that May Change.

Recently, Governor Schwarzenegger has come under fire for calling on President Obama to relax environmental rules to help stimulate the economy. However, new proposed environmental standards may finally be changing the way the government looks at transportation and development.

Anytime a development requires a permit from the state government, it must meet certain standards under the California Environmental Quality Act. Critics have charged that the CEQA standards, because of the state’s seeming belief that the number of cars on the road has little to do with pollution standards. However, the new proposed rules seem to start going back on that theory by eliminating state parking requirements and motorized Level of Service requirements. Could the state finally be pulling back from its car culture planning paradigm?

After the jump, you can see the proposed changes. If you want to let the state know how much you like the proposed regulations, you can send comments to CEQA.GHG@opr.ca.gov, but make sure you do it by the close of business on Monday, July 26. For a full list of all the changes, click here.

XVI. TRANSPORTATION/TRAFFIC — Would the project: a) Cause
an increase in traffic which is substantial in relation to the existing
traffic load and capacity of the street system (i.e., rResult in a substantial increase in eitherthe number of vehicle trips, the volume to capacity ratio on the roads, or congestion at intersections)roadway vehicle volume or vehicle miles traveled?

b)
Exceed, either individually or cumulatively, a level of service
standard established by the county congestion management agency for
designated roads or highways?

cb) Result in
a change in air traffic patterns, including either an increase in
traffic levels or a change in location that results in substantial
safety risks?

Wow, that would be a big change, but it looks like they still want the number of cars drawn to a project to be taken into account. Is VMT really the best way to measure that?

And roadway vehicle volume – isn’t that just Level of Service?

If a project will increase VMT, and will increase the roadway vehicle volume – then what should be the mitigations to that? From what I’ve seen, high induced VMT is only “mitigated” with wider roads, more turn lanes, hundreds of thousands spent on traffic signals, etc.

That is preventing “traffic” by making it easier for traffic to collect!

“Wow, that would be a big change, but it looks like they still want the number of cars drawn to a project to be taken into account. Is VMT really the best way to measure that?”
VMT is probably the better measure of traffic impacts compared with LOS.

“And roadway vehicle volume – isn’t that just Level of Service?”
No. LOS is a measure of delay. It also provides more wiggle room for mitigations that provide for bikes and peds instead of just insuring that motorist delay is not significantly impacted.

Seems like it could be a step in the right direction. . . but if they do this they’d need to put back some of the funding they took away from public transit agencies. A development that draws people without providing parking isn’t going to have much success without good public transit. I expect that this will lead to more developers building along Wilshre or existing major transit thoroughfares. Gentrification along the expo line, perhaps?

California planning experts continue to debate how to most effectively measure transportation impacts in a way that will foster smarter growth, after the state abandoned the car-centric metric known as Level of Service (LOS). The acronym-laden process of measuring transportation under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) may be complex and wonky, but it’s certainly important. In […]

Ding, dong…LOS is dead. At least as far as the state of California is concerned. Level of Service (LOS) has been the standard by which the state measures the transportation impacts of major developments and changes to roads. Level of Service is basically a measurement of how many cars can be pushed through an intersection […]

With today’s deadline looming for comments on new rules governing the way the state analyzes transportation planning impacts, many transportation planners and engineers remain confused about what the new rules might mean while others join advocates in hoping that new rules will create better projects. SB 743, signed into law last year, removes traffic Level of […]

Finally, some sanity may be coming to California’s most important environmental protection law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Under current law, all projects, be they rail lines, bike plans, or new buildings would have to prove that it would not impact local driving times or it would have to complete a costly mitigation plan. […]

California administrative rulemakers recently moved a step closer to reforming the section of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that has compelled cities to focus undue attention on the age-old Automobile Level of Service (LOS) threshold for impacts of new projects and has led to the construction of excess off-street parking.